Forum:Jerky Camera and Character Movement
I am coming here for help for this problem as I am at my wit's end; after about a year and a new computer, this issue still exists, and is driving me absolutely mad. Anyway, the issue in question is that the game has become choppy (hiccuping) and prone to jerky movements, primarily during dialogue and when running. When this issue first emerged on my old computer, it was already quite disconcerting, given ME 2 had run perfectly smooth up until that point. Indeed, no matter how much I changed the settings or reinstalled the game did any change occur. Already, this brought back dark memories of an ME 1 bug in which the characters heads would jerk around during dialogue (despite changing computers and whatnot), something that has remained to this very day. After trying updating driver software, defragging, running malware checks, modifying the various files, and ensuring there were no hardware issues, I simply gave up due to a lack of results in regards to the issue; this was made all the more frustrating by the complete lack of useful technical support from Bioware or the Social Network forums (the post uses my old system specs). Now, after having gotten a new computer a couple of months back which greatly exceeds my old system's capabilities (which was already a damn good system), I thought I would try to boot up Mass Effect 2 again and try it out... Only to be greeted by the exact same goddamn issue. I have gone through the whole gamut of technical checks and have once again found there is no bloody apparent reason for this to be happening; I have ensured all drivers are up to date, the game is fully patched, no programs are interfering in the background, all temperatures are well below the threshold of even the slightest concern, and have tried disabling the various cores, all to no avail. Indeed, the only lead I have to go on at this point is that this whole mess began after installing the Kasumi DLC and downloading the 1.02 patch. Now, I have indeed found mention of others who say dialogue and certain animations became buggy/choppy/jerky after downloading various DLCs, yet very few of said people have apparently managed to resolve said issues, and those that have did so using solutions which are ineffective or inapplicable for my current situation. Once again, this reminded me of Mass Effect, which began to have the jerky-dialogue-head-movement issue after installing Bring Down the Sky. System Specs OS: Windows 7 Home Premium 64-bit Processor: AMD Athlon II X4 640, ~3.0GHz Memory: 8192MB RAM DX Version: 11 GPU: NVidia GeForce GTX 460 Mass Effect 2 EXE is 1.02, launcher is 1.01, and config is 1.03; the game is the Steam digital download version, and I have all DLC for said game. No 3rd-party applications or tweaks are being used at this time. If anyone could assist me in this matter I would be most grateful, as I am becoming quite frustrated by this issue. --Haegemonia(talk) 01:03, July 27, 2011 (UTC) :Ah, some things I forgot to include: The weird jerky movements while running are most apparent when not in combat situations (running with weapons holstered), with the animation fine for the left leg, but when moving the right (second half of the running animation), the animation suddenly jerks in that direction. This also happens when just moving forward normally sometimes with the weapon holstered, but this is much less frequent. Additionally, I want to reiterate the rest of the environment continues running normally, it is just my character who seems to have the issue. Mind you, this is not the case when going through specific areas like the doors aboard the Normandy, the C-Sec Checkpoint into Zakera, and just before the door to Mordin's clinic, where the game does hiccup. :On that note, I did some additional research and I'm starting to think this might have something to do with issues the 400 Series of Nvidia cards have with certain games after downloading DX11... Of course, I've already tried running the game in various compatibility modes and by forcing it to run with DX9 to no avail, but from what I've read this has something to do with the INI files being changed by DX11, thus precluding those aforementioned fixes from working (albeit, this is similar to the issue with DLC and the patches altering the INIs, so it doesn't drastically alter my course of investigation). I am aware some have used a modified version of the 297.59 drivers for the 550i to fix such issues, but I'd rather not mess around with my video card's drivers at this point (thus risking other applications running into problems). --Haegemonia(talk) 14:14, July 28, 2011 (UTC) ::Another update: I just tried reinstalling and playing Mass Effect 1, and it runs terribly now (it's no longer just the jerky head movements in cutscenes). Basically, it's the same thing affecting Mass Effect 2, albeit much worse. --Haegemonia(talk) 19:47, August 2, 2011 (UTC) Regrettably, I can't provide positive assistance, but I can at least tell you that I've experienced few to no problems of the sort you describe (although, often I have to reset the "affinity" setting for ME2 in Task Manager: the 2-Core problem with ME2). I run both games on a 2008 iMac, Win7 64bit, DX 10, via Steam, with a so-so ATI Radeon (built for laptops); otherwise, weaker stats than yours. I run the game at 1900x1080 or such, average about 22 FPS (full everything, but no motion blurring or VSync, minor filtering); have all DLCs (except Overlord); in fact, I've installed the Kasumi and some other DLC twice. Upgraded to v. 1.02 before installing DLCs. Haven't noticed any "jerk" problem, on either game (exception: Quicksaving on ME always "hiccups"). Still, some particular points about the 2nd game: *The brief pauses upon entering the armory: may have experienced those, but they're not bothersome (data-loading hiccups). *The Shepard animation sometimes seems to have a "limp" or strut (one shoulder appears to drop lower) when walking, weapons holstered. Think I've seen something similar while Shep runs, too (no guns). * The Citadel Security checkpoint is, I believe, supposed to pause briefly, even after your first entry: often (but not always) the guard re-apologizes for the confusion (the pause is thus for his speech). * Entering Mordin's clinic might produce a "hiccup" perhaps because multiple commands are issued at once (forced weapons-away, allies make their default "clear!" remark, next room loading, AutoSave, etc.)? * Sometimes Shepard as it were gets confused by my sprinting and ceasing to sprint, & sprinting again, (with weapons holstered), and Shep will sort of jerk around and usually start to run almost in a short but broken arc (curve). This is fixed by stopping altogether, or by walking. Random questions: who makes your CPU? Is it when you "run", or when you "sprint"? Have you tried running Steam in OFFLINE mode (or, closing it after you've started the game)? similarly with the in-game "Online" settings (e.g. do you submit anonymous data to Bioware)? Do you play while on the internet? What's your typical FPS? Are you using your card to force Anti Aliasing (on my end that destroys FPS, so I doubt that you are)? Do the others you've encountered who experience this problem use AMDs and/or NVIDIA cards, etc.? Maybe you'll have progress looking into the NVIDIA issue you've suggested? Your update about retrying ME is troubling. Do you have or know of a (link to a) video showing the problems? I'm curious as to what you're experiencing, both in action and in dialogue. --AnotherRho 21:44, August 7, 2011 (UTC) :Ah, sorry for the delay, didn't realize anyone had responded here; I actually ended up posting on the Bioware Social Forums again (you should find the answers to almost all of your questions under that link) but haven't had much luck yet. As for your questions (the ones not answered by my other post): I don't force AA; the others I have encountered primarily seem to use Nvidia cards, but some are AMD users; I've had no success on the Nvidia end, the fact my FPS stays about ~60 without falling suggests it isn't a problem with the GPU; I'm afraid I have no video of the issue, and I am loathe to join that malefactor, Youtube, to post videos; the weird jerky movement is when I sprint with weapons holstered, not when I'm running normally. :I've also found Omega to be particularly guilty of weird hiccups occurring, though most of the other areas in the game run much more smoothly. --Haegemonia(talk) 23:54, August 8, 2011 (UTC)